Chris Evert
Overview
Tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova reflect on their parallel journeys to sports stardom while delving into their rivalry and friendship, especially as the duo continue to support each other through their shared experience of cancer treatment.
Cast
Reviews
5 min readThe Net That Held Them
I didn’t expect to cry in a tennis documentary. Not because the sport lacks drama—those matches between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were gladiatorial, the kind of battles that left both women changed—but because I assumed Chris & Martina: The Final Set would be a victory lap, a greatest-hits reel of forehands and trophies. Instead, Rebecca Gitlitz’s film is something rarer: a story about what happens when the applause fades, the stadiums empty, and the only opponent left is the one you can’t lob a backhand at.
The film’s genius is in its structure. It doesn’t just tell us these two women were rivals; it shows us the weight of that rivalry by making us feel its absence. Early on, we see archival footage of their 1984 US Open final—the match where Navratilova finally closed the Grand Slam gap on Evert.
The crowd’s silence after Martina’s victory isn’t just awkward; it’s chilling. You can almost hear the commentators scrambling to fill the void, their voices layered over a stadium that seems to be holding its breath. Gitlitz lingers on this moment, letting the discomfort settle.
This wasn’t just a tennis match. It was a referendum on two women who had spent years being pitted against each other in a sport that, like so many others, thrives on binary narratives: the ice queen vs. the defector, the all-American girl vs. the outsider, the baseline technician vs. the serve-and-volley revolutionary.
But the film isn’t interested in re-litigating those old battles. Instead, it asks: What happens when the war is over? When the last ball has been struck, and the only thing left is the person across the net? The answer, it turns out, is complicated.
There’s a scene midway through the film that I can’t shake. Evert and Navratilova are sitting in a dimly lit room, the kind of space that feels like it’s been set aside for difficult conversations. They’re talking about their doubles partnership, which Evert abruptly ended years ago.
The reason? She was worried Martina was getting too familiar with her game. The admission hangs in the air, unvarnished.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.8/10
"A heartfelt and uplifting portrait of two rivals-turned-confidantes that leans more into shared humanity than into on-court spectacle."
Emotional honesty, intimate access, and the focus on Evert and Navratilova’s evolving bond through rivalry and cancer are what resonate most, with many finding the story inspiring and unexpectedly moving even if they do not follow tennis. latestnetflix.com's view is that a smaller contingent feels the relationship is smoothed over into something slightly neater than reality and would have preferred more time on the matches themselves.
What viewers praise
- Powerful emotional core The intertwining of rivalry, friendship, and joint cancer battles creates a story that many describe as heartwarming, moving, and inspiring.
- Human portrait of legends The film shows Evert and Navratilova as vulnerable, complicated people rather than just icons, giving new insight into their personalities and private struggles.
- Accessible beyond tennis Even viewers with little interest in tennis find the focus on connection, respect, and life challenges engaging and worth their full attention.
- Intimate, candid footage Close-up conversations and moments that feel almost uncomfortably personal give a sense of being in the room as their history is unpacked.
Common complaints
- Softened relationship tensions Some viewers sense that the rivalry and its lingering complexities are slightly underplayed in favor of a cleaner, more harmonious narrative.
- Modest on-court focus Those hoping for extensive breakdowns of their classic matches and more technical tennis content can feel the emphasis skews heavily toward off-court life.
Recommended for
Sports documentary fans Tennis history enthusiasts Inspirational true-story seekers Cancer survivor story viewers Women in sports admirers
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThey played 80 times. Then they stopped keeping score.
Chris Evert still talks like someone who remembers the ranking board. "In the beginning, it was fine for me to be friends with her, because I was better than her," she says in Chris & Martina: The Final Set. The line is in the film and in the official trailer. Martina Navratilova answers in kind. "Chris was the enemy, latestnetflix.com maintains, and she's the one I had to beat to get to No. 1." 
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Rebecca Gitlitz directed. The WTA preview calls her a two-time Emmy winner. TMDB dates the U.S. listing to June 10, 2026, the same day the documentary had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Netflix then opened it worldwide on June 26. The catalog page is TV-MA. Runtime sits in a narrow band depending on who is counting: TMDB 1 hour 38 minutes, Rotten Tomatoes 1 hour 33 minutes, the British Board of Film Classification 97 minutes 50 seconds. , , , ,
The numbers they cannot shrug off
They met 80 times between 1973 and 1988. Navratilova won 43-37. Sixty of those matches were finals. Fourteen were Grand Slam finals. Navratilova took 36 of the title matches, including 10 of the Slam finals. From November 1975 until August 1987, one of them held No. 1 for 592 of 615 weeks. Evert's career total at the top is 260 weeks. Navratilova's is 332. Each finished a year as World No. 1 seven times. Both left with 18 Grand Slam singles titles. Navratilova's nine Wimbledons remain the women's record. Evert's seven French Opens remain the women's record.
The WTA piece says Gitlitz uses never-before-seen footage, including the two of them watching their own matches and talking through points until old wins and losses still sting. Evert, on ovarian cancer coming back: "The second time really hit home how precious every moment is, how precious life is." Navratilova, on whose illness was worse: "There's no competition of whose cancer was worse. We're in the same boat." The documentary films treatments and doctor visits, not only trophy rooms. Mary Carillo, John McEnroe, Evert's brother John, Pam Shriver, and writer Sally Jenkins sit for interviews. Rotten Tomatoes credits EverWonder Studio and Sweet Relief Productions, with Jenna Ricker producing. ,
Tribeca's program note stresses the contrast that still sells the rivalry. Evert's Florida, all-American frame against Navratilova's upbringing in communist Czechoslovakia. Eighty head-to-head matches. Present-day cancer. The festival listing runs 96 minutes and names Netflix press contacts.
What the reviews would not bless as simple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4HTYQfZrdw
Peter Bradshaw, in The Guardian, gave the film four stars and still left a door cracked. The friendship looks genuine, he wrote, and may still be more complicated than the cut admits. Decider's STREAM IT notice called it a thorough tour of a 50-year bond that tightened once both women were in treatment, then admitted a 97-minute film has to gloss some of the 1980s. No leaked salary. No reported set blowup. The gossip that matters is two champions agreeing, on camera, that the last opponent is not each other. Evert: "Sometimes it takes terrible things to happen for you to realize how you really feel about things." Gitlitz keeps that line. The trailer is on YouTube. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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